Minister for Transformation (): The annual statistics for
Fraud and Error in the Benefit System for the financial year
ending 2025, were published on Thursday 15 May 2024, at 9.30am.
Today's figures confirm the overall rate of overpayments is now
3.3% (£9.5bn) for 2024/25, compared to 3.6% (£9.7bn) in 2023/24.
Overpayments due to fraud account for 2.2% compared to 2.7% last
year while claimant error and official error are now at 0.7% and
0.4% respectively, compared to 0.6% and 0.3% last year.
This Government made a manifesto commitment that it will
safeguard taxpayers' money and not tolerate fraud or waste
anywhere in public services. With welfare benefits paid to around
24 million people, the welfare system is a deliberate target for
both organised crime groups and opportunistic individuals and it
is vital that the Government continues to robustly tackle fraud
to ensure support goes to those who need it most. We are taking
further steps to minimise error, ensuring the right people are
paid the right amount at the right time. The total rate of
benefit expenditure underpaid in FYE 2025 was 0.4% (£1.2bn),
compared with 0.4% (£1.1bn) in FYE 2024.
Through Autumn Budget 2024 and Spring Statement 2025, the
Department has committed to deliver £9.6bn in scored savings out
to 2029/30. This will be delivered through a suite of measures,
including additional resourcing for the Verify Earnings and
Pension Service which uses HMRC data to identify changes in
claimants' earnings and private pensions that may impact
entitlement to Carer's Allowance and Pension Credit, and new
verification measures for capital and self-employed income and
expenses across Universal Credit claims.
As part of this, the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and
Recovery Bill), which moves to second reading in the House of
Lords today, is estimated to deliver benefits of £1.5bn over the
next five years. It will safeguard public money by reducing
public sector fraud and error and allowing the more effective
recovery of monies owed to government. The Bill will also help
spot and stop errors earlier to avoid claimant's getting into
debt. The latest fraud and error in the benefit system statistics
show overpayments at a staggering £9.5bn in the last year, with
capital remaining one of the top reasons for overpayments in UC
and PC. This demonstrates the continued importance of the
Eligibility Verification Measure, which is a core part of the
Bill.
Today we have also published our Unfulfilled Eligibility
statistics, following last year's reclassification from customer
error underpayments. Unfulfilled Eligibility measures how much a
customer could have been eligible for had they told us their
correct circumstances. The total unfulfilled eligibility rate in
FYE 2025 was 1.3% (£3.7bn) compared with 1.2% (£3.1n) in FYE
2024.
The Department will report more on both overpayments and
underpayments by way of its Annual Report and Accounts, which are
due to be published in July 2025.
